Most people starting a WordPress website for the first time need help deciding which SEO plugin to choose. The options are endless: Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One, SEOPress, etc. But there’s one thing most webmasters don’t know: you don’t need an SEO plugin to rank on the search engine results page (SERP).
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Let’s look at some of the reasons why your WordPress website doesn’t need an SEO plugin.
1. SEO plugins overcomplicate the basics
Most WordPress SEO plugins have a checklist you need to follow to improve your SEO score, which according to the plugins, if not done, will make your on-page SEO weak. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
The checklist usually includes adding the focus keyword to the meta description, article title, permalink, first paragraph, final paragraph, and image alt texts. There’s nothing wrong with that, but adding a single keyword multiple times on a web page is bad SEO practice and can get you penalized for keyword stuffing.
A better approach is to find natural language processing (NLP), latent semantic indexing (LSI) terms, and related keywords to include in your content. This ensures that you use variations of the main keyword on your web page and therefore minimizes the chances of search engines penalizing your website.
Also, keywords can make or break your website’s SEO. Keyword research and usage are complicated concepts, even for experienced SEOs. But plugins oversimplify this by recommending that you use a single focus keyword in multiple placements.
There are also options to add multiple focus keywords, but even then, it’s not as effective as placing your keywords carefully without relying on a plugin.
WordPress plugins make you chase the green score of 100, which is not the most accurate reflection of good SEO.
2. You don’t rank with a good plugin but with good SEO
The more details you worry about, the more complex SEO will seem. On the contrary, SEO is simple if you have the skills and patience to tweak things using the available data. Learning SEO both theoretically and practically is the only way to master it.
Search engines and SEO existed long before WordPress was introduced. So clearly you don’t need a plugin for SEO. Instead, you can create your own checklist and follow it.
Plugins also put an unnecessary load on your web server and negatively affect website speed and uptime by hogging server resources.
3. WP plugins mainly focus on on-page SEO
Most WordPress plugins focus more on the on-page side of SEO and some technical SEO. Search engines, however, judge each website holistically, evaluating off-page, on-page and technical SEO before deciding which page ranks higher.
All three types of SEO are a foundation upon which your website is built, and even a single pillar set incorrectly can negatively affect your website’s authority. You actually need to master all three types of SEO to outrank your competitors.
4. You can customize WordPress for SEO
WordPress is highly customizable, and this is true even from an SEO point of view. You can use plugins, tweak site settings, change theme files, and add your own PHP code to customize WordPress to fit the bill.
Site architecture is an important part of technical SEO, but WordPress SEO plugins don’t focus much on this front. You can use SEO plugins to improve the architecture of your site, of course, but it’s also possible, and frankly, much more efficient, to do without a plugin.
5. WordPress plugins are vulnerable
In accordance with Colorlib, approximately 13,000 WordPress websites are compromised every day. A large number of these hacks are caused by vulnerabilities in WordPress plugins, especially those that are not actively developed.
Therefore, to maintain security and performance, it is recommended that you use as few plugins as possible. Even if you install plugins, be sure to check if the developer is still working on the project and if the plugin you downloaded is the latest version.
Stay away from broken or overridden plugins. Most of the time, they are a scam and not worth it!
It’s not entirely possible to prevent WordPress attacks, but if you stay vigilant and follow best practices, you can reduce the chances of your website being compromised.
When Should You Use an SEO Plugin?
While there are several reasons not to use an SEO plugin, there are situations where you should consider installing one.
1. To add a sitemap
The sitemap is one of the most important parts of your website. It lists all the posts, pages, authors, and media URLs currently on your website, and is used by search engines to crawl your website. It also ensures that search engine spiders have access to an ordered list of pages to index.
SEO plugins automate the creation and management of sitemaps (both XML and HTML) and allow you to configure which URLs to include in the sitemap.
Without an SEO plugin, you’ll have to manually create a sitemap page and add links to it every time you create a new page on your website.
2. Add indexing rule sets
Sitemaps allow you to define pages that you want indexed. On the other hand, there are pages on your website that you may not want search engines to index. These include author profile pages, taxonomy pages such as categories and tags, search archives, media links, and more.
SEO plugins help you define indexing rule sets for these pages and allow you to remove them from search engines if they have already been indexed.
WordPress SEO plugins help, but are not necessary!
In short, WordPress SEO plugins can help you on your journey to ranking number 1 on the search engine results page, but they are not particularly necessary. You can easily do this with search engine optimization even without an SEO plugin.
But there are other plugins that are important for a beginner WordPress webmaster. Your new WordPress website may need security plugins, backup tools, and page builders, depending on the functionality you want to integrate into your website.
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